The field of the invention is generally that of targets intended for use in testing one's skill in shooting some type of projectile, more particularly, for use in target shooting with a gun which fires one or more bullets at a target for the purpose of testing one's accuracy or the correctness of the sighting adjustment of the gun.
There are a great many prior art targets intended for the above-mentioned general purposes. However, when it comes to portable targets--targets that can be carried to some convenient location in the country or some other remote safe target shooting location, the customary target has serious disadvantages arising primarily from the fact that if one is positioned at a substantial distance from such a conventional prior art target of the bull's eye type, or any other similar prior art target, it is difficult to tell exactly where one's bullet has hit the target after shooting or firing at it. In many instances, it will be necessary to walk up to the target for the purpose of closely examining it to determine precisely where one's previously fired bullet has hit the target. This is disadvantageous for a number of reasons, among them being the inconvenience of having to walk up to the target frequently in order to carefully examine it for the bullet impact location determination mentioned above, plus the fact that there is some danger in frequently approaching the target if there are several target shooters positioned at one or more remote shooting locations. There is always the possibility of someone else shooting at the target while a first person is near the target which, of course, is extremely dangerous.
One prior art effort to overcome the above-mentioned prior art problem has been the use of various telescopic or binocular type optical devices, such as regular telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, or the like, so that one can view the target very carefully from the target shooting location for the purpose of attempting to determine precisely where the previously fired bullet has impacted the target. However, such spotting scopes are relatively expensive and are frequently not available to casual target shooters or frustrated hunters who have been unable to find their intended game and end up doing a little target shooting in the field. Under such field target shooting conditions, frequently, the target shooters will set up a row of cans or bottles rather than to use conventional bull's eye-type paperboard or cardboard targets primarily because of the previously mentioned prior art problem of knowing where one's bullet has hit such a conventional bull's eye-marked paper target. This is, of course, not true when one target shoots at bottles, cans, or the like, where the impact of the fired bullet will be immediately perceptible to the target shooter either because the hit bottle explodes or the hit can is caused to fly from its previous at rest location or emits a loud sound when it is shot by a bullet, or because it in some way produces a visible indication to the target shooter that he has hit the intended target, or, conversely, has missed it. That is the primary reason why such casual field target shooters frequently shoot at bottles, cans, electric power wire insulators and other objects which will give off a visible indication when hit by a fired bullet.
However, all of the above-mentioned types of targets are disadvantageous for various reasons, including the fact that broken bottles and torn up cans are a hazard or a danger to the next person who walks in that vicinity and create ecological problems. The use of telephone pole or power pole insulators as casual field targets is even more disadvantageous because the shooting of same by a bullet, and the resulting consequent damage caused to same, may bring about serious telephone or power line problems which may require expensive repair and maintenance.
Quite obviously, it would be highly advantageous to provide some type of readily portable target which would be convenient for casual field target shooting use, or any target shooting use for that matter, and which would provide a very perceptible indication to a remote target shooter of the hitting or missing of the target by a fired bullet and which would be relatively inexpensive and ecologically safe and non-damaging to the environment. It is precisely such a highly desirable and advantageous type of remotely-perceptible impact-indicating projectile target that is provided by and in the present invention, which target has advantages virtually completely overcoming the above-mentioned prior art problems, disadvantages and limitations, and all of which advantages flow from and occur by reason of the specific features of the invention pointed out hereinafter.